Production, Week One

Week 10 · SLOP8760

Phase 4 of 4 · The Episode

This week adds

The production line: a shot queue, roles split across it, and a gate every shot clears before it leaves.

The queue and the roles

One role generates, one audits continuity, one handles edit and sound. Shots move through in order, rather than each person running their own process end to end.

Patch or reshoot

Patch when the log says the setup is reproducible and the flaw is local. Reshoot when the log itself is what’s broken.

The form you are shooting into

664 millionmicro-drama viewers, 59.0% of all netizens

This is not a niche the course invented. CNNIC’s December 2025 count puts the micro-drama audience at 664 million people, against 1.125 billion netizens overall.

Source: CNNIC, 57th Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development (Feb 2026), 核心数据, p.9 — https://www.cnnic.net.cn/NMediaFile/2026/0304/MAIN1772588317069TUXN3827X8.pdf

The citation used to point at the report’s release page, which announces the report and does not carry this number. The sentence is on page 9 of the PDF, under 核心数据: “网络视频用户规模达 10.93 亿人……其中，短视频用户规模达 10.74 亿人，占网民整体的 95.4%；微短剧用户规模达 6.64 亿人，占网民整体的 59.0%。” The 11.25 billion netizens it is measured against is the first bullet on the same page. Cite the page that holds the number, not the page that holds the link to it.

The direction matters as much as the number. CNNIC’s June 2025 report had the same audience at 626 million and 55.8% of netizens; December 2024 had it at 662 million and 59.7%. So the form is enormous and no longer growing quickly, which is a different production problem from a form still finding its audience.

For scale beside a familiar number: the industry white paper reports a 2024 micro-drama market of about 50.44 billion yuan, and the film regulator reports 2024 box office at 42.502 billion yuan. Those are two separate primary sources, so “micro-drama passed the box office” is arithmetic done here rather than a claim either source makes.

The gate is not a course invention

Since 1 June 2024 a micro-drama that has not been filed and reviewed may not be distributed online, and budget is the main line between the tiers.

Tier	Reviewed by
Key, at or above ¥1,000,000	regulator: filing and finished programme
Ordinary, ¥300,000-1,000,000	regulator: filing and finished programme
Other, below ¥300,000	the platform

Budget is not the only door into the top tier: special subject matter, a platform’s front-page push, or the producer’s own declaration each open it at any budget.

Source: NRTA, 广电办发〔2024〕35号 — https://www.nrta.gov.cn/art/2025/2/5/art_113_70148.html

The notice lists the four as alternatives, not as a budget rule with exceptions: “‘重点微短剧’（符合特殊题材、总投资额度达到100万元及以上、长短视频平台招商主推或在各终端首页首屏推荐播出、自愿按重点微短剧申报等几种条件之一）”. 几种条件之一 — any one of them. So a cheap micro-drama that a platform pushes on its front page is reviewed as a key one, and the table’s budget column is the common case rather than the whole rule.

Read the table as a production fact rather than as law you are being examined on. It says that in the industry this course is imitating, a gate exists before distribution, its threshold is a budget number, and the smallest tier’s gate is the platform’s own. The exercise’s quality gate is the same shape at a scale you can run in a week.

The regulator has also published a target: a thousand good micro-dramas across 2026. Whatever that produces, it is a statement that the volume is expected to keep going up, which is the condition a queue exists for.

a single episode from tens of seconds to around fifteen minutes, with a relatively clear theme and through-line and a fairly continuous, complete story
NRTA 广电办发〔2022〕345号, translated

Source: NRTA, 广电办发〔2022〕345号 — https://www.nrta.gov.cn/art/2022/12/27/art_113_63062.html

Taking a reference episode apart

The hook cut from this course’s reference episode runs 00:00.000 to 00:03.000 — 72 frames at 24 fps. That is the whole of the window TikTok’s own guidance says a content proposition has to land inside.

Source: TikTok Ads Manager Help, creative best practices — https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article/creative-best-practices

This course keeps a one-minute reference episode specifically to take apart in this lecture, shot by shot: which shot is the hook, where the model sheet and master plate show up in the continuity, where a patch was clearly used instead of a reshoot, and where the quality gate would have caught something if it had been skipped. Watching the finished product with the queue and the gate in mind is a different exercise than watching it as a viewer, and it’s the fastest way to see what a gate actually catches before running one on your own footage.

The cut on the right is one of four taken from the same master, and its record is the point of the slide as much as the picture is: a shot leaves the queue with its timecode, its frame range and its source master attached, or it leaves the queue unfindable.

The quality gate

Continuity, loudness, captions. Captions are a text version of the speech and non-speech audio information needed to understand the content, and they are required at Level A. A shot that is beautiful and fails one of the three does not ship.

Source: W3C WAI, Captions/Subtitles — https://www.w3.org/WAI/media/av/captions/

Before class

Bring the model sheet, master plate, and beat sheet from the last three weeks in a state someone else on the queue could actually use.

This week’s exercise

Working in a small group, run three shots through the full queue — generation, continuity audit, edit and sound, quality gate — with each person holding one role for all three shots. Bring the three finished shots and a note on what the gate caught, or would have caught, to Wednesday’s Dailies.

Reading

NRTA notice on micro-drama filing (广电办发〔2022〕345号)
国家广播电视总局2022
单集时长从几十秒到15分钟左右、有着相对明确的主题和主线、较为连续和完整的故事情节
NRTA notice on micro-drama management (广电办发〔2024〕35号)
国家广播电视总局2024
从2024年6月1日起，未经审核且备案的微短剧不得上网传播
中国微短剧行业发展白皮书（2024）, via Xinhua
中国网络视听节目服务协会2024
2024年我国微短剧市场规模约达504.4亿元，同比增长34.90%
CNNIC, 57th Statistical Report on China's Internet Development
CNNIC2026
微短剧用户规模达6.64亿人，占网民整体的59.0%

Production, Week One#

Week 10 · SLOP8760#

This week adds#

The queue and the roles#

Patch or reshoot#

The form you are shooting into#

The gate is not a course invention#

Taking a reference episode apart#

The quality gate#

Before class#

This week’s exercise#

Reading#